The rest of the country might not understand the political color scheme here in Massachusetts: The ballots with the red banners that were filled out in yesterday's presidential primaries were for Democrats, while the blue ones were for Republicans.
That meant former governor Mitt Romney, who derided Massachusetts as "the bluest state in America," had his name emblazoned on a royal blue Republican ballot. Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had their names on a red ballot.
Most of America paints Republicans a fiery red and Democrats a royal blue, a view rooted in the coloring of political maps on news shows during elections.
"The coloring of the ballots in Massachusetts far antedates red-state and the blue-state schemes," said Brian McNiff, a spokesman for Secretary of State William F. Galvin. McNiff estimated that the tradition goes back at least 50 years. "We were printing them that way long before cable television."
The origin of the red-state, blue-state division is difficult to trace, but it firmly took hold during the disputed election in 2000, said David Starkey, who edited a collection of essays titled "Living Blue in the Red States." People spent so much time scrutinizing the red and blue maps that they began to view the country in those terms, he said. Obama then proclaimed that he wanted to be president of not just the blue states, but red states, too.
"We are all much more purple than we want to acknowledge," said Starkey, an English professor at Santa Barbara City College. "The fact that Mitt was governor of a liberal state probably shows that he has a little more purple in him than he might want to admit," he said.
ANDREW RYAN
